feminist news round-up 28.10.12

28 October 2012

Melbourne Reclaims the Night

Following the death of Jill Meagher, Melbourne feminists held a Reclaim the Night event earlier this week. Around 5,000 people marched in order to take a stand against victim blaming and to campaign for the end to violence against women. Read a speech given at the event here.

The many kinds of rape

US Republicans are up to their bizarre mansplaining again this week, Senatorial candidate Richard Mourdock of Indiana claimed children born of rape are ‘God intended’. He echoed former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s urging to accept the rapist’s offspring as, ‘a gift of human life.’ Republicans so far have referred to legitimate rape, forcible rape, easy rape, honest rape, emergency rape, enjoyable rape and now gift-from-God rape. For those having trouble understanding all these various terms, here’s an easy chart for your reference:

Taylor Swift not a feminist

It seems that recently, every time a female celebrity reveals herself as ‘not a feminist’, the media jumps on it. Taylor Swift has joined the ranks of non-feminists this week in an interview with The Daily Beast. Asked if she thought of herself as a feminist, she responded: ‘I don’t really think about things as guys versus girls. I never have. I was raised by parents who brought me up to think if you work as hard as guys, you can go far in life.’ In fact, her interview revealed that unlike many musicians who have strong political views, she didn’t really stand for anything.

University bans ‘freshman’

The University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill has recently banned the term ‘freshman’, denouncing it as sexist. ‘Freshman’ is an American term used to describe students in their first year of college. The university has removed the word from all official documents and claimed that they want to use more gender-inclusive language. Some students have spoken out against the changes. Brandon Hartness, Executive Vice Chair for the school’s college Republicans chapter, said: ‘I feel like they are making a big deal out of nothing.’ Are they? Tell us what you think below!

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